The present disclosure relates to power delivery.
Delivering power to modern electronic circuits is becoming increasingly challenging. Microprocessors, graphics processors, systems on a chip (SoC's), multi-chip modules (MCMs), and other large scale integrated systems are drawing increasing amounts of power, in the form of voltage and current, at ever increasing speeds. However, in order for the circuits in such systems to operate properly, these systems may require a voltage on a power supply rail that is maintained within some nominal range across a wide variety of load current conditions. For example, a power supply rail for a microprocessor may have nominal voltage Vdd. When the microprocessor is operating in a low power consumption mode (e.g., drawing only a small or modest current), Vdd should be maintained below some maximum value for Vdd. Similarly, when the microprocessor rapidly transitions from a low power consumption mode to a high power consumption mode, a very rapid increase in current may occur, but Vdd should be maintained above some minimum value for Vdd.
External power supply circuits have traditionally been used to supply voltage and current to power supply rails of target circuits, such as microprocessors and the like. However, traditional power supply circuit architectures are challenged by the power demands of modern target circuits, where current requirements are increasing, power supply voltages are decreasing, and load current steps are becoming faster and faster.